The Urban Garden Project Chickens

Well it is official!  Here at The Urban Garden Project Test Garden we have selected the breed of chickens that will reside in our new Square Foot Gardening Chicken Coop!  The breed you ask?  We we will get to that later in the post, but I wanted to first point out a great on-line tool that you can use to help make your choice of a chicken breed for your garden!  The “Which Chicken” Breed Selection tool over at My Pet Chicken asks the user questions about their requirements for bird hardiness, reproduction, egg production, egg color and more!  Once you answer the questions and click on “Find My Chicken” you get a list of breeds with pictures that meet the requirement parameters you set!  To use this tool click HERE.

After using this great new tool we made our selection.  Buff Orpintons!  For our garden we require a bird that is cold hardy since winter days in north Idaho can reach temperatures below zero.  We also require a bird whos’ egg production isn’t affected much by the cold.  It is also important that the breed that we choose be able to handle confinement since our two-story coop sits inside of a 4×4 raised bed.  They have a run on the ground level and a roost above with plenty of confined space, but we don’t want to have to let them out to scratch every day if we don’t get around to it.  Last but not least we were looking for a bird that is docile and very friendly.

This combination of requirements lead us straight to the Buff Orpington!  The Buff is considered a “dual purpose” bird as the hens can reach weights of up to 7lbs.  This is great as it will give us an option to process the birds if and when the egg production slows.  Remember, we are getting birds for eggs not necessarily for pets.  This year has seen an incredible and unprecedented run on chickens!  It seems that the economy has persuaded more and more families to entertain the idea of keeping a small backyard flock.  In our area we went to four stores and all were sold out, finally finding one that could put them on order so that we can take delivery in 3 weeks!  Our advice for those that have decided to keep a flock and who are looking for birds would be to search locally for chicks well in advance of the date that you are hoping to get them!  Be looking for a few posts and videos about the chickens once they arrive on May 5th!